New Farm Workers

With a title like "New Farm Workers" you might be picturing some guys in overalls but you will have to let that image fly away, because these farm workers are pretty small and certainly don't wear overalls.

Our new workers are actually converting our kitchen leftovers, as well as some animal leftovers donated by the farmer next door, into a highly nutritious animal feed!

This is an important project for us as so many of the farmers here struggle with providing adequate feed for their animals.  There is also a second issue that is less obvious and that is the issue of animal waste or feces. There are often droppings all around the farm (which for many folks is their home) and the disease vector and ground water pollutant that the animal feces will cause are hidden issues.  What is really exciting is that these problems can be virtually eliminated by employing our new workers!

Our new farm workers are actually flies... or more precisely their larva.  It's the Black Soldier Fly, or Hermetia illucens,  that we are using because of the truly amazing properties God gave it.

They are considered the ultimate food, or waste, recyclers because of the amazingly high conversion rate of feed into larva.  They are readily found here in Honduras, as well as in the states, but if you ever saw one you probably would not have recognized it as a fly.

The fly itself looks more like a wasp but no worries as it has no stinger.  It also does not eat in the fly stage and so this is not a fly that would annoy you at a picnic trying to land on your hotdogs and hamburgers.  The reason?  They don't have mouths.  So, they don't bite!

In the fly stage it is living simply to mate and lay eggs.  The eggs will hatch and become little white round larva that eat, and eat, and eat...  becoming nice packets of protein and fat!

Here are the mature larva that can be used as chicken, fish and pig feed. 

It's just fun to see them in full wiggly action!

The design we used for the Black Soldier Fly Larva composter is a simple modification from the one posted on the web by the fine folks at www.gardenpool.org.

Of note is that the barrel is on an angle from the front up to the back, and then the canal, or in our case a piece of guttering, is on an angle from the back of the barrel up to the front.  That's all to take advantage of another amazing design property that God built in.

That design property is commonly referred to as the crawl off.  When the larva are mature they turn from white to brown, from being all round to being more flattened, and then they instinctively crawl upward in search of soil to dig into and pupate.  That's the period when they'll change, or their metamorphosis, from larva into fly.

So, the barrel is angled up to the back and the piece of guttering is angled up to the front, so that the larva will simply follow the incline and self harvest into the awaiting trough (another piece of guttering).  In the picture is a larva dangling just before the fall into the collection trough.

This is a very full trough with hundreds of larva.  The rock is there just to keep the trough from being blown off in a storm with the results of hundreds of escapees to gather up!

We empty the trough to take the larva to the chickens.

This is a handful.  You can see that in the crawl off they are self cleaning as these larva are not dirtying my hand at all.  Yes, it really tickles as they squirm around and try to get between my fingers!!

 To say that our chickens are happy about the Black Soldier Fly Larva project is quite an understatement.  They naturally love eating insects, grubs and worms and so the larva are probably much more satisfying to them then the poultry concentrate purchased from the feed store.

Just a quick look in the barrel.  I had been cleaning it the day before and added some water so it's a little wetter than usual, but the larva don't seem to mind!!

Please pray with us that the Lord would use the Black Soldier Fly Larva project to bless the people!  That they can see and use something amazing that the Lord has prepared for them to freely use and so experience that the Lord has good for them!!

The thief (Satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; 

I (Jesus) have come that they may have life, 

and have it to the full.  John 10:10